: again, the major developments of the day: president obama and the senate returned to work, with five days left until the fiscal cliff of tax hikes and spending cuts. the house planned to reconvene on sunday evening. a christmas season storm rolled through the northeast and new england, as the death toll climbed to 16. and lisa jackson announced she's stepping down as administrator of the environmental protection agency. and online, we've got a unique year-in-review of sorts. kwame holman has more. >> holman: science correspondent miles o'brien has had a most interesting 2012. he's crawled in sewage, cuddled with dolphins and played guinea pig to lots of experiments. watch some of the best outtakes of miles' science stories on the rundown. and we round up the most important lessons we've learned about helping kids stay in school from our series, american graduate. all that and more is on our web site newshour.pbs.org. margaret? >> warner: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. i'm margaret warner. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening wi

the onset of the so-called fiscal cliff. obama and republican leaders remain at a crossroads on reaching a budget deal before the combination of spending cuts and tax hikes kicks in with the new year. on wednesday, treasury secretary timothy geithner told congress the u.s. will reach its federal borrowing limit on new year's eve, threatening the same default that was narrowly avoided last year. in a letter to lawmakers, geithner vowed to take extraordinary measures to avoid a new default but said any remedies would only be short- term. the u.s. has acknowledged for the first time a carried out a september drone strike that killed 11 people in yemen. the victims were packed into a truck on a desert road in a town of radda when they're struck by a missile. the washington post reports the yemeni government tried to hide u.s. responsibility for the attack by taking credit for carrying it out. the yemeni government also initially claimed only militants were killed in the strike, or forced to withdraw that claim after mourners tried to bring the dead bodies to the gates of the preside

congress. because of stories like this, that can paint the picture to the voters that obama's not playing ball. >> trying to explain this to somebody from pluto. say in australia now. saying when congress wrote the cliff, defined it, spend cuts, increases on income, tax increase on state. they wrote it up as this horrible thing that nobody would want to face. either side, right? they designed it that way. now they're walking right over that cliff. over niagra falls. explain. >> it's like congress is on pluto and we're all on earth. they say they want deficit reduction. if you go over the cliff, you get deficit reduction, you just don't get it in the responsible, accountable way. it's like chopping off on arm. >> like says i want a shower, i'm going to niagra falls. >> they still can't get it done. we're dysfunctional. no other explanation. >> i think they can stop the roller coaster and make it go. they're doing a dance now because republicans don't want to do something to rates. obama wants to play hardball. but i think they'll have a different argument later in the year. >> i gu